


The Pragmatist

by julad



Category: Blake's 7
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-21
Updated: 2008-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-25 06:39:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1636955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/julad/pseuds/julad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Most of the people in the rebellion had a bitter reason for it: a father killed, a sister taken away, or a home demolished or liberty denied.  Jenna had no such trauma.  Her family was respectable, her status impeccable, her freedoms generous by Federation standards.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Pragmatist

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so, so, so sorry for any typos or errors or canon screw-ups! I just plain ran out of time to check everything. Thanks to Calico, Terri and Mia for beta and assistance.
> 
> Written for Vehemently

 

 

When Jenna Stannis was a girl, she had mouse-brown hair which fell straight as an arrow down to her waist, and her mother brushed it for her every night.

"When you're a little older, we'll have this colour adjusted to something more glamourous," her mother always promised. "I know you don't care for such things, Jenna, but a woman has more uses for good looks than she does for plain. You'll learn to appreciate that."

Jenna really hadn't cared for any looks at all. She always read while her mother brushed her hair, and barely paid attention.

When she was a little older, and the time came to select a more glamourous colour, her mother recommended a rich, glossy chocolate. "A blonde woman gets more attention, but less respect. You're such a serious girl, Jenna. I think we'd better choose something that will ensure you are taken seriously." By then, Jenna was old enough to begin to appreciate the uses a woman had for good looks, and she had done some research to inform her choice of hair colour. She concurred with her mother: she would need to be a brunette if she wanted to be taken seriously. 

After the adjustment, she was pleased with their decision. Her eyelashes came out particularly well - long and lush. She looked competent, capable, and just a little bit mysterious. She didn't know yet what she wanted to achieve in her life, but she now looked like a woman who would be capable of achieving something.

* * *

Most of the people in the rebellion had a bitter reason for it: a father killed, a sister taken away, or a home demolished or liberty denied. Jenna had no such trauma. Her family was respectable, her status impeccable, her freedoms generous by Federation standards. 

Jenna had always been intrigued by how blatantly untrue so many of the Federation's claims were, and feigned an interest in history and anthropology in order to understand this. Her parents were very strict on many issues, including appropriate topics for conversation in good society, and so she understood better than most children she knew that one mustn't ask questions about the Federation, or appear too interested in what it did or how it operated. Nonetheless, she endeavoured in subtle ways to find out.

By the time she was a teenager she had a strict rationing system: for every book which helped her understand the Federation, she read five which had no bearing on the subjects she was interested in. Twice a year she must go two months without reading anything that might appear suspicious. Only once per year might she express an opinion on the Federation that was less than complimentary. She hoarded these opportunities and chose them with great care. 

She slipped on only one occasion, when she was fifteen. Her aunt had come to the house in great distress: Jenna's uncle and cousin had been arrested for trading without a licence. 

Jenna knew this process well, as it was of great economic benefit to the Federation. Whether or not the charges were true, a good deal of money would be needed to straighten the matter out, but her uncle's assets had been seized upon the arrest. In addition to the value of the assets, the lack of resources to convince a judge that there had been an unfortunate licencing error often resulted in entire families condemned to a lifetime of hard labour, extracting valuable metals and minerals from mines on distant planets, or working Federation farms.

Her cousin Arka was her good friend and companion; the thought of him being ground up to feed the Federation's unending appetite for resources was just too much. "Oh, damn the Federation!" Jenna burst out. 

She was greeted by a horrified silence, and then a slap from her father so brutal that it sent her crashing into the wall.

The licencing matter was made to quietly go away, but so too did her aunt, uncle and cousin, never to be spoken of again. Jenna never again spoke harshly of the Federation in polite company.

* * *

When Jenna Stannis was a young pirate, she had rich, glossy chocolate hair which fell in loose curls halfway down her back, and the young men of the resistance and the underworld stumbled over themselves and each other to find any excuse to tangle their fingers in it.

"If you have the opportunity, you should do something about your hair," the rebel Avalon advised her. "A woman in this business is safest when she's mousy enough to fade into the background, or if she looks too silly to have a backup plan." 

Jenna was not about to give up the usefulness of her good looks. Blonde it was.

* * *

Avon is ultimately a coward.

He's an angry, angry, _angry_ man, Avon, and she suspects he always has been. He's too intelligent and too rational for a world this blatantly dishonest and corrupt. Jenna herself was smart enough to see through the Federation's facades of enlightment and civilisation as a child, and focussed enough to keep her mouth shut about it, but her mind compared to Avon's is a dimmed lamp compared to a sun. He undoubtedly has a strength of will to match his mind, but containing himself must consume him. 

So yes, Avon is angry, and for very good reasons. But Avon is cowardly, above all, because he has never been willing to challenge his oppressors and tormentors directly. His considerable talents were wasted on the pursuit of wealth and, through that, sanctuary. Avon dreams of owning his own planet, where he can live untroubled by the Federation. He's with the Liberator still because he's smart enough to know the exact number of credits required to obtain inviolable shelter in a galaxy where the Federation is everywhere, and to know that this ship is his best opportunity to acquire them. That doesn't change the fact that his highest ambition in life is to hide.

The strangest thing about Avon is how ardently Blake wants him.

For what purpose Blake wants him - practical, intellectual, emotional, carnal - Jenna does not know, and she suspects Blake is unsure himself, or at least unconvinced by his own reasoning. What it is Blake sees in Avon, Jenna cannot even begin to fathom, but perhaps it is the very impossibility of him that is the attraction. Blake has not so much a tendency towards futile quests as a towering ambition to bring the visions in his head into reality. A free and fair galaxy is not enough to fulfil the scale of Blake's dreams, no: he must also yearn for the devotion and loyalty of Kerr Avon. Jenna is above all things a pragmatist, but she can't help but admire how unreservedly Blake hurls himself against mountains, and marvel at how mountains have a tendency to develop fractures when he does. It's the audacity of the challenge as much as anything which does it, Jenna thinks, and she can see Avon shoring up his resistance even as the very fact of Blake's attempt is shaking him to his foundations. If she didn't despise Avon, she'd be inclined to pity him. The kind of man Avon is doesn't bend or yield, and the kind of man Blake is doesn't relent or cease, and so eventually, inevitably, Blake will shatter him. 

Jenna herself has been long ago wooed and won by Blake's epic idealism, but she was already committed to rebellion, so there was no resistance to shatter or self-image to collapse. She had rather enjoyed surrendering to his vision, in fact. Accepting Blake's leadership had many advantages, falling under his spell was clearly inevitable, and Blake was possessed of considerable charm - what was a girl to do in these situations but bask in the attention and appreciation that one receives for being willing? It had been, after all, the pragmatic thing to do.

* * *

At University she identified resistance agents and recruiters, but evaded involvement. She had her parents to think of, after all. They might have been stern, and sometimes even repressive, but on no account did they deserve what happened to the families of dissidents, rebels, and resistance fighters. 

Instead, she studied intergalactic commerce. Her father had not been one for telling fanciful bedtime stories. Rather, he told bedtime stories about the difficulties of maintaining the ventilation systems on a galaxy class cargo ship during intergalactic hauls, and the effects of planetary tariffs on the price of iridium, and the importance of selecting the right crew. He never tried to convince her that running a trading fleet was a good life, but he did inadvertently convince her that it was an honest life. Or at least, he convinced her that it could be no more dishonest than was necessary to obtain goods, ports, parts, repairs, a crew, trading licences and buyers. In the Federation, that was something.

Jenna knew the resistance had very few Alphas who weren't already fugitives. However fragile and easily withdrawn her freedoms, she did have some additional liberties, influence, and if (when) it came to it, credits enough to pay her way out of one or two 'misunderstandings'. She had access to information and inside knowledge. She had, if it came down to it, opportunities to aid the resistance and hinder the Federation. That was something very few dissidents could offer.

Jenna also knew that resistance operations were fragile and messy, easily infiltrated and easily disrupted. This was a reason to stay away, yes, but also a reason to learn as much as she could about running a tight ship and an effective business. To date, it seemed, those were areas where resistance to the Federation had been sorely lacking.

If she was going to do this, she needed boltholes on every planet, secret bank accounts and hoards of valuables, a network of allies and partners spanning the galaxy, a steady income, her own ship, a cover story, a backup cover story, a cover story for her cover stories, and very little contact with the leaky, flimsy, agent-riddled Resistance. She needed to straddle the civilised and uncivilised worlds, but not be identified in the former or tainted by the latter. She needed to be smart, careful, sensible and bold. But above all, she needed to avoid taking their cause completely to heart because that way, it was blazingly obvious, lay excessive risk, minimal gain, and pointless martyrdom.

* * *

Vila is not a coward at all; merely lazy. In Jenna's view, the only reason a man of Vila's talents becomes a thief is because he has an aversion to discipline and hard work. Certainly there were better career choices if one disliked taking risks, even for a Delta. Vila did not become a thief through cowardice. He became a thief because he has a sense of entitlement that exceeds his inclination to earn the things he feels entitled to. 

Still, Jenna can't blame him for his choices. A Delta could work honest fingers to the bone and achieve no more than a shabby respectability and perhaps some novelty value - the Delta come good. Vila is not the type to humbly serve as a token example of the justness of the Federation class system. And the Federation, she thinks wryly, generally prefers Deltas to serve as examples of the efficiency of the Federation justice system.

In the end, though, Vila will not do something if there is an option for him to not do it. That makes him as untrustworthy as Avon, and rather less useful.

Gan is, like hundreds of men, one of the workhorses of the resistance. A family man without a family, and a farmer without a farm, he'll lift, carry and fight until he takes a stun blast to save or protect somebody more valuable. 

In another lifetime, she would have married a man like Gan. He's willing, hard working, courageous, devoted and above all, good-natured. The others on the ship would barely understand it, not even Cally, who has never known privilege, but Jenna suspects sometimes that if there was no Federation, she would have rebelled by taking a husband of no means, no station, and no upward mobility. The man would have been a doting father to her children, lifting them up high for kisses as she scolded him for tracking mud from the fields into her shabby kitchen. They would have laboured for long hours every day, and struggled sometimes to keep cold and hunger at a safe distance, but she would have been satisfied, and happy, and content.

In this lifetime, Gan has a short life expectancy, so it's best that she doesn't get too attached.

* * *

She tried to avoid using intermediaries, because the risks were higher when too many people knew the plan, when the chain contained too many links whose strength was untested. But this one time, Jenna thought, as she sat in a bar identifying four conspicuously large men taking up position near the door... this one time a middleman might have been a good idea.

It was nearly midnight; nearly time. Jenna could have kicked herself. She had been expecting one client, one credit tab that they could verify right here at the bar, and two cars outside - ready to take Jenna in one direction and O'Shay's lackey in the other.

With that muscle on the door, she knew neither the key she had, nor the credits she was meant to be trading it for, would be leaving in her pocket.

Jenna leaned back in her chair, counting her options. If she waited, they'd take the key by force if necessary. If she ran, they'd shoot her. A man was strutting towards her table, as if to pass by - probably heading through to the dancing area, but getting himself a good look at her legs as he went. He looked like option number three.

Her mouth dry, Jenna pretended to take a sip of her sparkling grey cocktail, and met his gaze with feigned idleness. He almost tripped over his own feet, which was gratifying. Behind him, in her peripheral vision, O'Shay's men were turning people away from the front door.

Jenna threw her admirer a bright smile and rose to her feet. She tucked her hair behind her ear and tilted her head towards the dancefloor. "Dance?"

It was a reckless move, but she was losing options fast by remaining at that table.

"Y--yes," he said, his eyes like saucers. That's right, Jenna thought, laughing as if he'd said something effortlessly amusing, dipping her head towards him.

She loosely grasped his fingers and led him onto the dancefloor. He was agreeably pliant; to be honest, he looked like all his Christmases had come at once. She humoured his attempts at footwork and tried to focus on undulating hypnotically, shaking her hair over her eyes. His hands were certainly happy enough to fit onto her waist when she guided them there.

"It's a nice place, this," he ventured, and Jenna forced a big, dreamy smile as she angled him so that his body blocked the line of sight from the door. She caught sight of one of O'Shay's guys, and saw that it was hopeless: the man was doing the rounds now, interrupting conversations and bending his head close to theirs, checking ID cards. This was going to be a close one. 

She leaned in to whisper to her dance partner. "Do you want to take me home with you?"

He froze, then pulled back to look her in the face. His earnest delight was almost endearing; if she hadn't been running for her life, she almost might have considered him as a bedfellow.

She smiled, pretending to be shy now.

"I'd be delighted," the man said, nodding slowly and then grinning as the reality seemed to sink in. "My ride's out the front. Wanna see?"

"I'd be delighted," Jenna mimicked, letting her eyes crinkle up at him, tasting freedom in the back of her throat.

The main laughed, then he led her through the colourful, lurching crowd, his fingers wrapped loosely around her wrist. Jenna matched his stride easily, swaying against him whenever possible, and then one of O'Shay's pig-eyed men stopped them at the door and Jenna's heart jumped to clog her windpipe.

"Names," the lackey said shortly, and the world stood still for a moment--

\--And then the man said, "Scarlet and Sam Heathrow," and pulled a card out of his jacket. "No trouble, please."

He seemed a lot more composed when dealing with thick-necked men than he had been with Jenna. The lackey read his card, grunted, nodded, and let them pass.

Relief and endorphins were ringing in Jenna's ears as they stepped onto the pavement, and then she saw the vehicle that her saviour was leading her towards. Black, with blacked out windows, and a small Federation logo on the side.

The man's loose hold on her wrist went rigid.

"I already have your crew in custody, and if you give me one bit of trouble, I'll have to take my frustrations out on them," he said with cold relish, and the taste of freedom dried in her mouth.

* * *

When she graduated from University, she asked her father for a small vessel as a graduation gift. She had already had her eye on one for a couple of months - her father didn't have much use for it any more, and was thinking of selling it off for parts. It was nothing flash: several decades old and not nearly as powerful or efficient as newer ships, but it would make a good start for a young trader making short hops between systems. It was more than enough, and she ploughed her profits into making it faster and more manoueverable, with better sensors and more advanced comms. When her mother died, the inheritance helped her retrofit completely, and a year after that, she had enough in the bank to trade it in for a newer model. 

Her father passed away soon after that, and he died proud of what his young daughter had accomplished. Jenna stood silent at his funeral with her hand to her cheek where he had long ago struck her. She wondered if he would be proud of what she was going to do next, with him was safely beyond the Federation's reach, and his fleet and fortune in her hands. She suspected he would be grimly satisfied.

* * *

After her arrest, Jenna watched option after option vanish - the option to retrieve enough credits for a bribe, the option to escape, the option for her trial to be something other than a farce, the option of a brief sentence, the option of freedom. A lifetime on Cygnus Alpha was a lifetime of no options, and the failed takeover of the prison ship was the end of the line. 

Finding herself on an abandoned alien vessel was not an option she had ever entertained. It was too unlikely, almost unreal. Jenna Stannis was not a dreamer.

The alien ship was a dream. To a pilot and a pirate, it the most magificent palace imaginable. It was spacious beyond belief, with fittings worthy of a royal touring vessel. There was room for cargo to feed a planet or arm a dozen battalions. Its sensors were jaw-droppingly accurate, and its speed was staggering. There was nothing in its hold that was not opulent or decadent. It was completely and utterly outrageous.

The alien ship was power and privilege that not even an Alpha could know or dream of. It made Jenna's stomach quail with awe and anticipation. This ship changed the options entirely: the scope, the goal, the plan, the players, the timeline, the strategy. This ship was not just a more effective resistance to Federation power. It was an end to it. This ship was liberation. 

* * *

Cally is sweet. She smiles, and listens, and cares too much. She understands, and wants to make things better. She is tolerant, and forgiving, and generous. She gives Jenna little gifts picked up from offworld, and gives her compliments simply because she thought something nice, and lures her into the empty rooms of the Liberator to play fancy dress or hide and seek or to talk about past joys and future pleasures. There is nothing to fear in Cally, and because she is also strong and capable, there is nothing to fear for her. Cally is free in the truest sense. She is sweet in the finest sense; sweet like clean fresh water to parched lips and tongue.

Jenna's father rarely had sweets in the house. He always said it was best not to become too accustomed to such things - sweets, luxuries, finery. When she was a little girl, Jenna was always thrilled to be invited to birthday parties where there were presents, and chocolates, and as much cake as she could want. As she grew older, however, she understood better how brittle her privilege was, and how hard her father worked to keep them safe from harm. She came to emulate him in his ascetic form of epicureanism, recognising the fine things in her life, but avoiding becoming too fond of them. In time, she lost her taste for sweet things. 

The Liberator has changed all this. Thousands of doors have opened because of this ship, including many that Jenna had long held shut. The door to hope, the door to trust, the door to laughter, the door to a lighter heart. She has Blake now, and Gan; Vila and Avon for what they're worth; but above all she has Cally, and for the first time she has looked through the door to friendship and seen, not somebody who could betray her or somebody who could get hurt, but somebody who she can share her true thoughts with, and giggle, and dream.

 


End file.
